Read Online Bee Season by Myla Goldberg - Free Book Online Page B

isn’t at the synagogue, he is in his study. He is grateful for a wife with enough interests to allow his return to work after dinner. He tells himself there is companionship in their discrete activities, togetherness in their occupation of adjoining rooms. Saul decides that if he only needed three hours of sleep a night he too would resent being asked to come to bed any earlier than necessary. He is often deep asleep by the time his wife slips between their sheets. Occasionally she accompanies him to the bedroom, but once they are done she leaves again. On these nights Saul feels as if he is back at the university, carefully wooing a skittish law school student.
    Aaron’s appearance on the scene is a supernova, illuminating Saul’s life with a degree of clarity generally reserved for hindsight. Saul keeps waiting for the light to reach Miriam as well.
We’ve gone too far from each other,
they will tell each other.
We’ve got to find our way back.
But while Miriam appears to take great pride in Aaron’s birth, she relates to it more as a goal attained than as a personal revelation. Birth of Son seems to occupy a similar part of her psyche as Earning Law Degree, another check-off on a lifelong To Do list. Unprepared for the care and maintenance that attend this particular milestone, Miriam delegates late night feedings and sodden diapers to Saul, who revels in the intimacy these duties afford. It becomes clear to Saul that his supernova has occurred in his personal universe rather than the rapidly expanding one of his marriage. He relishes the sense of possession this gives him. This is
his
son,
his
baby boy; Aaron fills the very gap his birth reveals.
    It starts feeling natural, even beneficial, for Saul to go to bed alone, allowing him to focus on his goals for the following day. Saul realizes that Miriam’s sexual prowess hasn’t improved markedly since their first time together, when he perceived her as an untried pupil who would grow to mastery under his carnal tutelage. Saul grows less mindful of his wife’s late night arrivals to bed, less often awaits her with eager tongue and upturned palm.
    As it slowly becomes clear that theirs is a marriage of mutual utility, Saul’s feelings of love ebb into gratitude. He realizes, sheepishly, that he likes his low-maintenance marriage, privately admits that he might not be suited to a more conventional situation. After Eliza’s conception, their rare lovemaking tapers off even further. Saul rationalizes that the infrequency of their intimacy prevents him from taking sex for granted, a shortcoming he associates with his ignoble college days. By banishing sex from his mind, he can turn his full attention to his scholarly pursuits, exactly as he had hoped Miriam would inspire him to do. Besides, he can always masturbate to his memories. The attic is uncharred and filled with sunlight, the mattress is a queen-size box spring, and the young coeds know just which buttons to push.
----
    Saul has noted with approval the time Eliza now spends in her room. He tells her how happy he is to see her taking initiative. Though he offers to help, Eliza feels protective of her practice sessions, takes a certain pride in studying alone.
    This evening, as with every evening, Miriam is ensconced in her brown velour recliner, shoes off, prowling through magazines with diametrically opposed titles like
Neo-Proletarian Review
and
Armed Chris-tian Family.
She will stay rooted in her recliner, still except for the movement of her hands, until she finds what she is looking for. When she finds it, she laughs.
    Miriam laughs like a happy chicken. It is a joyful, uninhibited cackle entirely out of place with the rest of her, which is why Eliza loves it so much. As Miriam laughs, she flies up from her recliner to her electric typewriter, turned on in anticipation of just such a moment. She types, “Gray’s quixotic implication that the Moral Majority holds exclusive stock to the country’s future